


How do you mend a broken bone?

by stjarna



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Mention of Domestic Violence, One Shot, Short, Trigger Warnings, academy au, mention of verbal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-18 14:45:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11292846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stjarna/pseuds/stjarna
Summary: For theFitzsimmons Fanfic Contest” Angst VS Flufforganized by @fitzsimmonsforlife. [This is the angst version, in case that wasn't clear.]Prompt: “What makes you think this was an accident?”Trigger warning: Mention of verbal abuse and domestic violence.





	How do you mend a broken bone?

“Alright. Give her a kiss and a hug from me, yes? ... Bye, Liam.” Jemma hangs up the phone.

Fitz, who’d been standing next to her bookshelf, his fingers absentmindedly gliding over the spines of her library, turns to look at her when he notices her call has ended.

Jemma slumps her shoulders, pushing her lower lip forward and looking rather pitiful. “Clara broke her arm.”

Fitz’s eyes widen in shock. “Wha—? Is she alright?”

Jemma nods. “Yeah. She’s fine. She fell off the seesaw. It’s not a compound fracture or anything like that. But still. This is her second time breaking a bone. I mean, she’s only five.”

Fitz shrugs briefly. “Broke my arm in two places when I was seven.”

“I suppose.” Jemma furrows her brows, tilting her head to one side, before chuckling. “I broke my pinky when my grandmother insisted that every six-year-old girl should go horseback riding. I guess kids are prone to accidents.”

Jemma puts her phone down on her desk, assuming they’ve exhausted the topic. She picks up her chemistry book to resume their study session, sighing as her eyes wander over the page trying to find the spot where she’d left off before her brother had called.

“What makes you think this was an accident?” Fitz mutters under his breath.

Jemma looks up, not sure if she’s heard correctly. She wrinkles her forehead in confusion when she sees Fitz standing with his eyes fixed on her carpet, his thumb pushing nervously into the palm of his other hand.

“Well, why would anyone break their own bones on purpose?” Jemma chuckles, nervously. “That’s ridiculous.”

He doesn’t look up, but his eyes are blinking rapidly and something about his timid posture makes Jemma’s heart beat anxiously.

“To make him stop.” His voice is barely above a whisper.

Jemma reaches behind herself, putting the book back down on her desk. “Make whom stop?” she asks, just as quietly.

He wets his lips, slowly lifting his head, but his eyes dart back to the ground as soon as they meet Jemma’s. “My… my dad.”

Jemma feels as if everything suddenly stands still. She doesn’t hear the traffic outside her open window, doesn’t hear the other cadets chatting loudly outside her dorm room. She knows every muscle in her body has suddenly tightened and yet she can’t feel a thing, not her muscles, not her heart, not her lungs.

“Fitz?” she mutters in disbelief.

His chin quivers and Jemma watches helplessly as a tear jumps from his eyelashes and slowly snakes down his cheek.

“I… I thought—” Fitz clears his throat, struggling to keep eye contact. “I thought if I were hurt, really hurt, like a broken bone then… then he’d stop. At least for a few weeks.”

Jemma can’t stop her lips from trembling. Her best friend becomes blurry before her eyes as they fill with tears. “Stop what?”

“Hitting me. Yelling. Calling me stupid,” Fitz admits, slumping his shoulders and turning his face away from her.

Jemma draws in a shaky breath, intuitively taking a step forward. “Oh, Fitz.”

He sniffs, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “But the second we came home from the hospital he started yelling. ‘How can anyone be so bloody stupid and fall down the stairs?’” Fitz scoffs, his lips pulling into a pained smile. “As if that’s how it happened.”

He swallows, lifting his head. The anger and sadness shimmering in his blue eyes makes Jemma’s stomach twinge in pain.

“Next day I went to school with my arm in a cast, a black eye and split lip.” He bites his lower lip as if he can still taste the blood, shaking his head slightly. “No one said a thing.” He shrugs. “They thought I’d fallen down the stairs.”

Jemma stares at Fitz in silence, barely able to process his story. Her emotions are running wild: sadness, anger, despair, confusion, fear, empathy. Her brain seems incapable of sending a clear message to the muscles in her face. She grimaces, torn between wanting to cry, wanting to scream, wanting to smile and reassure him.

He looks at her wide-eyed, raising his shoulders ever so slightly. “Not even my mum knows I did it on purpose. She wasn’t home then. Tea with a friend.”

Fitz lifts his left arm, twisting it slowly back and forth and staring at it absentmindedly. “Stuck it in between the door and the frame and slammed it shut. Then went downstairs. Pretended I’d fallen. Telly was so loud he didn’t even notice it at first.”

His eyes meet hers again, sad and pleading, blinking away tears. “I was seven,” he mutters, his chin quivering. “Seven.”

He closes his eyes, pressing his lips into a thin line. His hands, hanging tired and defeated by his side, begin to tremble.

Jemma exhales sharply, her breath stuttering with anxiety as she closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Fitz’s neck and holding him close. She feels his hands on her back, his body shaking with sobs as he buries his face in her shoulder. His tears soak through her blouse and Jemma pulls him even closer, letting her own tears run freely and hoping that somehow he can breathe a little lighter now that she’s there to carry some of his load.


End file.
